“Under Our Skin”

The documentary, Under Our Skin, sheds a whole lot of light (Tracy is that grammar acceptable?), on the Lyme disease battle.  As many of you are aware, my wife was diagnosed with Lyme disease just over one year ago.  Well, actually, we diagnosed it then, but it wasn’t until October that we were able to get a corresponding diagnosis from a medical doctor.

Which is one of the most prevalent problems with this disease.  As you watch this movie and hear the stories of mis-diagnosis, the stories reveal how this disease becomes deadly.  One of the concerns that I have, is simply how rampant this disease is becoming, yet how unknown it is.  Perhaps the most significant of concerns with the spread of the disease, is that the vector, the tick, lives for two years.  Consider the difference of a tick, feeding, and re-feeding on many different host animals over its lifetime.

It starts by contracting the disease from a random animal.  Passes it on, and again.  When compared to a mosquito who lives between four days and one month (depending on the breed), the tick life cycle offers much greater opportunity for an infected insect to infect others.  Oh, and some ticks, live over a decade.

The documentary is currently available to view on Dr. Mercola’s website until 8/1/14.  So, if you act on this now, you can watch the entire video, for free, online.  I also noticed it is in the On Demand list on DISH network, giving you the opportunity to watch it that way.  I recommend you view it.

My end goal with educating on Lyme, is to help others be quick to identify a problem.  The critical period of the Lyme fight, is the first month.  It is common that individuals who are treated early, are able to overcome the disease completely.  And as you know, I am totally against medical treatments as the first step, we always see the importance of wellness focus first.  Chiropractic, nutrition… then the damaging therapies of medicine last.  Well, not with this disease.  This one you need the antibiotic early.  So diagnosis is critical.

We acquired doxycycline illegally in order to begin treatment before we had the diagnosis.  It was a good idea.  Laura is still in the fight, but we have had some good signs that she is possibly going to be over this battle in the next few months.  I have patients, and others whom I now know who have fought this battle for 4, 6 and even up to 12 years.

From Dr. Mercola’s Article –

According to preliminary statistics1 released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year, approximately 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease are diagnosed in the US each year.

This is about 10 times higher than the officially reported number of cases, indicating that the disease is being vastly underreported. Since national surveillance began in 1982, the number of Lyme cases reported annually has increased nearly 25-fold.2

That is a SIGNIFICANT statistic.  Now, a quick review of the mis-diagnosis, and what it all means.  Very commonly, because the symptoms of Lyme are heavily in the neurological world, the patient will appear to have MS.  A common drug therapy for MS patients is to utilize Interferon therapy.   Natural interferon is produced by the body to inhibit the activity of pathogens such as viruses, and bacteria.

You will read that interferon drug therapy helps the immune system.  But I would re-state that as “assists”.  Helps would suggest that it is an aid to the effort of the immune system, where assistance would be working alongside of it.  The reason why this matters, is because the use of interferon, according to RXList.com can result in “abnormalities of the cells in the blood”… as well as “a drop in red and white blood cells and platelets”.  The problem is that unnatural drug therapy, can do work, but the the body stops doing work.  This is a very bad response when the spirochete, borrelia burgdorferi, is running around your body.  At this point, you want nothing more than an active immune system.

So in the presence of a mis-diagnosis, the host/victim, is left in a weakened state for fighting, and often times when diagnosis occurs, the body is so far behind the infection, that years are required, along with massive efforts in lifestyle control and supplementation, to build the immune system back to where it needs to be.

Be wise, be educated, Be Blessed and Be Well!  – Dr. E